Rejoice, the housing market is back. Sandy Weill just picked up a humdinger of a wine vineyard estate in Sonoma, Calif., for a record $31 million, so the foreclosure crisis—which the former CEO of Citigroup did so much to create when he successfully lobbied then-President Bill Clinton to sign off on radical deregulation of the banking industry—must be over.

After all, Weill wasn’t desperate for shelter, already being in possession of a 14-acre estate in über-exclusive Greenwich, Conn., and a 120-acre spread in New York state’s Adirondacks. Let’s also not forget the penthouse that he bought for $42.4 million in New York City in 2007 as the banking collapse he helped engineer was fast developing. Not too shabby for a guy who ran Citigroup into the ground by trafficking in what proved to be toxic mortgage-based securities.

Thanks to legislation that Weill got President Clinton to sign off on, Citigroup was allowed to become too big to fail, and when fail it did, the taxpayers had to bail the humungous bank out—to the tune of $50 billion in a direct subsidy and $306 billion more for the housing mortgage-backed securities Citigroup was holding. The Treasury still owns a good chunk of Citigroup common stock, now trading at a paltry four dollars and change per share.

READ IT ALL AT THE LINK...AND GET A FEW SURPRISES AS WELL.

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

Why is the financial services industry so obscenely lucrative and why are the most powerful players involved in it. There are undoubtedly multitudes of reasons but here is at least one: Currently the reported Federal Funds Rate range is between 0.00 % and 0.25% and has not changed much since January 2009 while the Prime rate has been at 3.25% for the same period. Historically average actual lending rates vary but are generally over 1 point above prime rates. This gives the banks a spread of about 4 points. Outside of the illicit drug trade there is probably no other business that offers a 400% return. What is even a sweeter deal, we, the depositing public, lend the money to the banks to make these sick profits. Check your savings and CD rates and see if you are getting anything more than a paltry 0.25 or 0.30%. 'That' is "their" cost of borrowing. And when these geniuses lose money due to excessive greed, such as chasing subprime loans so they can lend at 15% and 20%, we, the taxpayers have to bail them out.

Let us face it. Who are you going to blame? The politicians and big business, for a long time, have been operating a Barnum and Bailey circus and, we, the public are standing in line to be accepted as clowns. Every time I go to the bank, which is not often, upon leaving I hear this sound from the bank's executive board room “sssuckerrrrr” accompanied with loud laughter. Zafar Khan

This is a hysterical look at China’s kicking of our asses. You can learn 10 times more about the economy and the world from this 5 minute cartoon than from Bernanke’s hours of lies and obfuscation before the Senate. It’s a sad state of affairs.

I checked out the PLUG for this site, posted by expiretheliars...where I found this video:

This is a hysterical look at China’s kicking of our asses. You can learn 10 times more about the economy and the world from this 5 minute cartoon than from Bernanke’s hours of lies and obfuscation before the Senate. It’s a sad state of affairs.

I checked out the PLUG for this site, posted by expiretheliars...where I found this video: